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Olyokminsky Ulus fire, 13 July 2019 Olyokminsky Ulus, Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2019, 05:13 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2019 in Olyokminsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,833 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 141th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 30 in Russia in 2019, of 613.

Burnt area
32,833ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
13 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
13 Jul
2019
Heat detections
4,199
in a single hotspot: 295 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
54.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

131516171819202122232425262728293031

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
49km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.1 mm on 1 Aug.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Olyokminsky Ulus where it started
    35,050 ha reached on 12 Jul
    0.2 %
  2. Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus
    11 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
12 Jul 30.1 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Jul 26.0 °C 52 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 12
14 Jul 24.5 °C 68 % 26 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 2
15 Jul 26.4 °C 42 % 31 km/h 1.3 mm Low 6
16 Jul 25.0 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
17 Jul 26.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jul 19.4 °C 39 % 49 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 4
19 Jul 16.2 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
20 Jul 19.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Jul 22.3 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Jul 26.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
23 Jul 26.8 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jul 26.9 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Jul 27.8 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Jul 28.2 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jul 29.6 °C 25 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Jul 31.0 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jul 24.3 °C 48 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jul 19.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
31 Jul 21.1 °C 37 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
1 Aug after 20.8 °C 53 % 35 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 6 Jul 2019
After · 7 Aug 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 4,199Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Russia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Olyokminsky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 July 2019 and 31 July 2019: 19 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 32,833 hectares (328.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Olyokminsky Ulus (35,050 ha, 0.2 %); Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus (11 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Russia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.